Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s much maligned/celebrated/misunderstood/visionary former finance minister (delete as appropriate), offered his thoughts on the priorities for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this week, as the Coalition embarks on its leadership of Australia’s 45th parliament.
Speaking to the ABC, the globe-trotting Varoufakis, who spent the 1990s teaching economics at the University of Sydney, said Mr Turnbull needed to “overcome the fixation with public debt [and] concentrate on the real issue: private debt that has gone beyond the pale”.
The ex-SYRIZA minister said private debt was “maintaining a bubble and the deception and the illusion of ‘the lucky country'”.
Mr Varoufakis urged Mr Turnbull to “concentrate on how to start making things again, instead of shuffling things around while private debt is exploding”.
Turning his attention to Australia’s immigration policy, Varoufakis said that the new Coalition government had a duty to review and reform its asylum seekers policy.
“Australia in the 1990s led the world into misanthropy regarding refugees. The ‘Australian solution’ has now been transplanted to my neck of the woods in Europe,” he said.
“Maybe Australia could start a renaissance in this realm by altering its attitude to refugees. I’m hoping the tail will wag the dog once more, but this time in a beneficial manner.”